Oasis trial balloon breaks loose

"Most of the trials were a terrific success. The ship performed her various tests very well and everyone is very excited," he wrote on June 12.

"But, we had one nasty surprise early this morning. I previously mentioned that we were thinking of adding an aerostat to the ship and were doing a test to see if it was practical/desirable. It required a lot of temporary rigging but they managed to put a test balloon on the ship ...

"Then this morning, something happened and the balloon broke free. It ended up in the water and we are now taking steps to recover it and determine what happened. This is precisely why we do such tests (and why I don't take credit until we know whether or not they are successful)."

It would seem that tethered-balloon ascents are now somewhat less likely to be among the ship's already overwhelming list of passenger possibilities!